Interview Judas Companion - ENG
With the name Judas Companion – which echoes ‘treacherous company’ – the artist already gives us a glimpse into her enigmatic oeuvre. In this interview, she speaks candidly about her masks, her fascination with transformation and pain, and about the ways in which humor, vulnerability, and protection find their way into her art. A conversation full of contradictions, where fragility and betrayal meet.
You often make masks. Do these masks, as in African tradition, connect you to a world of ancestors and wisdom?
Judas Companion: I must laugh because I really wish they would bring me wisdom. But no, unfortunately not… (laughs).
My masks are expressions. They are expressions of myself. They express how I feel, that’s the way I communicate. I’m someone with a poker face, that’s something personal. I like that, and I rarely show my emotions – I’m very good at that. Which also means I’m very bad at not doing it. And I think my masks have become a way of showing my emotions.
So, they’re self-portraits. Do they serve to hide and protect your true self, or rather to express your feelings?
Neither one, and both at the same time. I look at the world through the mask and search for what the mask reveals. That makes me very vulnerable. At the same time, it protects me. In the past, I often photographed myself wearing only a mask and otherwise naked—precisely to be both very vulnerable and very protected.I also feel protected when I wear a mask. Whenever I do an outdoor photo session, the moment I put on the mask, I become a performer. And as a performer, I’m no longer part of this world. As a performer, I don’t belong to society. I’m not part of reality. I’m somewhere else. I feel that strongly during photo sessions and performances. So yes, again, it is both.
I make sure it’s both: hiding and showing. That’s why I use these fine mohair threads. I choose that material because it’s semi-transparent, and that’s important to me.
You also transform yourself into animals.
My animal transformations are meant to show failure, to show that something goes wrong. I try to turn into an animal in order to become natural. To become an innocent being. But it doesn’t work. That’s why I use these hastily made, half-hearted costumes. They’re never perfect and they usually fall apart during the performance. That’s very important: they show that it doesn’t work. My attempts at transformation always fail. That’s what I show. That’s what interests me. It’s about failure.
In the performance Human to hedgehog (2024) we see you suffering. Does art have a healing effect?
What more can I say about that pain? I think it’s simply the pain I feel. It’s a contradiction. I’m always interested in contradictions: it’s a healing process, but at the same time I want to destroy the body. Interpret it however you like. The exaggerated number of acupuncture needles is no longer healing—it becomes painful. It’s about that contradiction. Like with the knitted masks: I want to be visible and hidden at the same time, vulnerable and protected at the same time.The essence is to try something that doesn’t succeed. Because of course, in the end, I’m not a hedgehog. Of course, I’m not a snail. Of course, I’m not a spider. And of course, I struggle to become a hedgehog, a snail, or a spider. I struggle with that transformation. And it simply doesn’t work. I’m not sure if that always comes across clearly, but that is really what I want to say.Besides, it wouldn’t be hard for me to make a very accurate, beautiful spider costume—I could easily do that. But it’s a conscious choice that everything falls apart during the performance. The same with the hedgehog. That costume could have been perfect too, but the point is that it’s not. Take the mask, for example: they’re just nails I pushed through an old coat from my grandmother. Very rough and messy. It’s always painful. The transformation is painful, and it fails! (laughs)
I hear you laugh. So, can we also laugh with your work?
Of course! Yes, I see it myself also in a humoristic way. I laugh about my artworks, and I wouldn’t make them if I couldn’t laugh about them. But—that being said—I notice the audience doesn’t always laugh along. My experience is that they laugh much less than I do. I don’t openly criticize (society, editor’s note); I think I rather reflect my process and what the work does to me. That’s what I do. There isn’t a clear message I want to convey. It’s my reflection.
I never come with a solution. My solution is that it doesn’t work. The only thing I really say is that the artwork exists. And maybe that’s already a solution in itself: the emotion is expressed, and through that, the artwork is created. That could be called a solution. But I don’t really have one.
Making something so bizarre that people start laughing. That’s the clash for me, and that's what I'm interested in.
Do your metamorphoses into animals also contain a critique of how humans treat animals?
No, not at all. It’s pure self-reflection. It’s me trying to fit into society. That’s what it is. (pauses) … although of course I do like animals (laughs).
Are there gender-related aspects in your artistic choices? For instance, your artist’s name or your choice to knit?
I created my artist’s name in 2016. In my work I am always called Judas Companion. That is the main character. But I also make self-portraits with a female appearance. With this I want to question identity, to disguise it while still making it visible. Some people said: “Oh, I thought Judas was a male name, so I assumed Judas was a photographer working with a model.” I think they hadn’t really looked closely at the work. This happens sometimes. It’s not always clear which gender I am.But the knitting came before I ever thought about gender. I started knitting when I was twelve. I learned it from my mother. It became a tool, and I stuck with knitting to create the see-through effect. Not to play into the female stigma of knitting. I like to use a very old tradition that makes it look a little silly. But I didn’t choose knitting for gender reasons.
Your 2023 video performance is entitled Pussy. Does it refer to sexuality and pornography?
Yes, sure. But again, it was for personal reasons that I called it Pussy and made it pornographic. I let my body be used for pornography. It was a way of getting somewhere, of using it in a dirty way. This video is the most pornographic I ever made.I see pornography as a neglection of the human being. This is personal: I see it as a neglection of feelings. Like selling my body. That’s something I find important to mention with this work. In the past, I did a lot of masks and hats and wore nothing underneath. To be very vulnerable, but also to underline that cheapest aspect—the pornographic aspect.
In essence, pornography is a form of neglection. I’m not sure I would still photograph myself naked now. In my most recent photo shoots, I’m wearing clothes. Maybe I’m changing direction. Before, it was very important for me to make it clear that my body was being used and thereby neglecting the mind.
YOU SEE YOU - Judas Companion from September 5 to October 18, 2025 at Micki Chomicki Gallery, Antwerp.
https://www.mickichomickigallery.com/